The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1887-04-28
MODERN POETRY.
The Charm Of Recent Poetry In the
Thought Rather than In the
Form.

The Charm OF Recent Poetry In the 1
Thought Rather than In the
Form.
It would be interesting to know how
these little books of new poetry would
affect an ingenious and intelligent
youth; but probably he could not tell
il he read them. What one feels more
and more, as he grows older, is that the /
new poetry does not seem to be made /
for him, and he suspects charm and /
virtue in il that does not reach his soul |
through his toughened sensibilities. |
Very likely they are not in it, but he |
finds it the advantage Of his spiritual |
health to imagine them there; and he
hopes to acquire merit by supposing
that some one else may feel them. It |
is certainly not always easy to read this |
new poetry; but honestly, between one
and ones self, was poetry ever very
easy readinge 1t is doubtless easiest
when read aloud to a person of the
other sex; then it is charming, if the
person of the other sex is charming;
and it has its attractions even when
read aloud to a group of attractive per-
sons of the other sex. Or two young
men may read it together when they
arc both in love, and in like manner
two young girls. But in ones closet
Gas ones room is called in poetry, not
the real closet where ones clothes
hangl, in the solitude of ones cham
Der, would not one far rather have a
good novel, if he wished to be either
pleased or edited? This is very bold
question, and it requires all our hardi-
hood to put it; but sooner or later some
one must ask it, for poetry is gradually
changing it's whole relation to life,
which il no longer depicts or expresses
in the old way. 1t no longer even rep
resents literature as it once did. In
the beginnings of modern literature the
mere poetic form was enough; metre
and rhyme meant scholarship, and men
were amazed, as children now are, at
people who could make'thenl. After
ward thought and feeling were demands
ed as well as metre and rhyme; then ell
egance, then beauty, and beauty more
and more. There was a time when his
tory was told in verse, and in the epics
there was a good deal of fact as well as
fiction. In our day Aur0rd Leigh and
Lucille were attempts to give the poetic
form to novels, and the epic may be
said tn have expired in them; their sue
cess ended the long tradition. The
pastoral WAS dead long ago. dead the
satire, dead the metrical drama. The
tale in verse ceased with Tennyson's
Idyls, and his own and other peoples
limitations of them: What we have
left is the essay, descriptive or subject
i've; the sonnet. uttering in elaborate
form a single thought or emotion; the
INrVss saRl ,N.fA L..
drum, the lyrical picture, and the lyric
al cry or outburst. To this last the
metrical shape still seems essential; it
sings and it pleases; but that it is really
essential we do not think any reader OF
Tourguenief's Poems in Prose viii
maintain. Nevertheless il has vet an
undeniable value. though it can no
longer impart this value to thoughts in
themselves poor and slight; and it is
proof of the intellectual and emotional
merit of much in this group of books
that the charm seems inherent in the
thought rather than the form. :.
Lord Tennyson might be hastily sup
posed 10 be trying to make US think il
had been. or ought to have been, very
little, in his. echo of ..LOcksley Hal
Sixty Years After But il seems to us
that his attitude in the poem has
been misconceived, and that he has
been thought to express personal pes
simism. when the poem was largely
dramatic. As Il poem i is very good in
parts, better than its young readers,
who have not lived long enough 70 re.
grct their passions and preiudices can
know. 1t breathes the wisdom and
the humility of age, as well as its fore.
boding and despair; if it judges the
world harshly and hopelessly. it con-
fesses and forgives with touching meek
ness the error and the loss of first love.
For these virtues the imagined speaker
may be allowed to fling about him
somewhat crafty; to find all going
wrong, as old men do, and to rail at
the age as If God had made mistake
in letting it come to PCS. We have
heard a young philosopher, one of the
new school abhorred by sueh old men
for their desire to look facts in the
face and try to see what they mean. de-
clare that years need not always bring
this despair; that the day may come
when men instead of setting up some
little ideal of aesthetics, or morals, or
society. which must inevitably topple
O'SA AAA WIN u new Nv
velopment of seeming good og seeming
i'll as part of design not inadvisedIy
conceived, and inevitably working
from everlasting to everlasting; and
that they then will not be shocked, but
interested and eager for the next turn
of affairs. If the hero of "Locksiey
Hail. were living in the possible future
of this hopeful evolutionist, he would
probably not scream at author. athe-
ist, essayist. novelist. realist,' for be-
ing true TO their knowledge of human
nature, and would regard 1.-The maiden
fancies wallowing in the tloughs of 20
laisnl" as perhaps no more dangerous
" employed than in eoniecturing the
precise character and experiences of
such ladies as Vivien and Guinevere,
EttaTre and Isolde.-F d. Hotcells. ia
Editors Study, Rarpers' Magazine.